


Spirits of the Deep

by DoodleBee



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodleBee/pseuds/DoodleBee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They call her Granny Rags. You wouldn’t recognize her real name or even the name of her family, but an Emperor begged for her hand once, and rich young men fought each other for her favor. I watched her consider them all, measure their worth, and find them wanting. Then she made a different choice.”<br/>– The Outsider, Dishonored</p>
<p>A story about Vera Moray's expedition to Pandyssia and how she came to be known as Granny Rags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tribute piece to Dishonored. While playing the game, I was most interested in the backstory of Granny Rags/Vera Moray and how she got to a dingy apartment, blind and taking care of plague rats. I'm writing this piece as a contribution to her background. I read as much as I could about Pandyssia, Granny Rags, the Outsider, and expeditions to the continent before filling in the blanks, analyzing particularly Vera's fascination with the Outsider and her descent into insanity. At the end, it will tie into the canonical Granny Rags and how we find her in the game.
> 
> Keep in mind, I originally wrote this for my fiction workshop class - an audience not familiar with Dishonored.
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Off the shores of wild Pandyssia, a massive glinting whaling trawler slid towards the shell-dappled shoreline, through the dark rolling waves. The people on the massive ship stood in two groups: the whalers around their haul in the form of a singing whale on an h-shaped crane, its bottom cut out and blubber dripping steadily into a massive funnel – and the explorers they were paid to carry there and drop at a point at a safe distance from the continent.

At the head of the expedition group, Lady Vera Moray stood with her husband Preston and squinted at the shore through blue eyes underneath neatly pinned black hair, but her gaze disturbed when an explorer, Lewis Inchmouth, stepped in front of her.

“The captain would like to know the furthest distance we can disembark,” he seemed to recite.

“Tell him just a few miles further,” she replied, then looping an arm through her husband’s, watching as he walked back. “Why did we bring him along?”

“He insisted on it, I’m afraid. That and he’s paying for half the expedition,” he replied, standing only a bit higher than his wife. His clothes had a noble’s look to them, but an unkempt noble. Brown flecks of stubble sprayed over his jaw line, hair that had grown long enough to grow into a ponytail, in the time Vera had been away. She made a mental note to chop the ponytail off in his sleep.

“If we’re paying half and so is he, then why come on this trawler?” she asked.

“Just cuts down on cost,” he replied. “It would have been an unnecessary expense to rent our own ship, especially for our small group.”

“I didn’t marry a man who cut back on unnecessary expenses,” Vera replied. “When we were both members of the Empress’ court, you sure didn’t hold back on gifts.”

“Neither did the other men,” he replied.

“All in vain, too, it wasn’t the gifts that interested me. The Emperor of Tyvia would have given me the whole isle, but he was dull.” She replied, looking him over, while his gaze kept fixed on the continent in the distance.

“Then what did interest you?” He said, his eyes flicking to hers.

“Your...unpredictability. You didn’t propose to me when we first met, for instance.”

He laughed, a deep laugh that rumbled in his chest. “No, I didn’t. It took a few years for me to work up to that.”

She laughed lightly, but as she ran her fingers over her husband’s wrinkled coat sleeve, she felt there had been a gap opened up between them. This man was a different one than the man she married. Maybe she expected her husband to remain constant even as her environment changed, as she flitted through the isles, meeting new people, learning new culture, but he spoke differently, seemed to think differently. There were dark circles under his eyes when they used to be wide awake, curious. She asked, “Just what did you study while I was away?”

“Knowledge of anything I could contribute, really. Health remedies. Ways to make whale oil less explosive. But I’ve settled on Pandyssia, obviously,” he replied. “The only place you haven’t been.”

“Hmm. Makes the world seem smaller,” she replied. “But there are already scholars researching Pandyssia.”

“ I’d like to provide a more...objective stance on the research of the cave paintings.”

“You mean those on the Outsider?”

His eyes seemed to go wearier when she said the name. “Yes, on the Outsider. And all that’s associated. The information we gather is rendered useless if only biased people write about it.”

“Said like a true scholar,” she replied, eyebrows raising. “You weren’t always so philosophical.”

“Time changes people, dear,” he replied, meeting her eye.

They had gotten even closer to the continent. A shriek rang out from somewhere on the tip of the peninsula they were passing, on their way into the inlet, and flutters of something hummed so loudly that the air around them seemed to vibrate. The whale sang in response.

“Should we have brought an Overseer?” he asked her quietly.

“No, and I wasn’t aware you became such a grand supporter of the Abbey while I was away,” she said, smirking.

“Of course I didn’t,” he said too quickly.

“We aren’t in Dunwall anymore, dear. An Overseer’s music box won’t do any good here,” she said simply. It wouldn’t have. The Abbey of the Everyman, no matter their devices and strict doctrines, couldn’t exactly help them where the power and magic they fought against was concentrated in the ground. Pandyssia thrummed with a sort of dark cosmic energy that few endeavored to understand, but that’s what expeditions of the day were for. From where they stood on the ship, the Morays could only see only the impossibly tall line of twisted trees, tainted at the bottom with slick oil carried across from her home in Dunwall, whale oil that glowed a faint blue that splashed in large rivulets over the roots. The whale sang its death song as the rest of their expedition group appeared on the deck, toting their various supplies with them

Theirs was a small group, consisting of a weaponeer, a cook, a biologist, an apprentice Lord Moray had taken on, Explorer Lewis Inchmouth, and of course the Morays themselves.

Preston looked about to speak to the gathered group, while the whalers onboard looked at them with snarls of disgust, in their crudely colored brown uniforms and blood-spattered arms. The people seeking knowledge versus the people who powered civilization. He thought different of it and closed his mouth slowly, meeting eyes with his wife, or attempting to, because she was meeting the steely gaze of the Captain, who approached them and cast a shadow over Vera.

“This is where you get off,” the whaling captain said, adjusting his waistcoat. In contrast to his burly whalers, the captain was a slender, tall man in vivid clothing, cold blue eyes and a crown of white hair, a regular captain of the industry. “A boat off the port side is ready to take you down, and we’ll be having it back within the month.”

“So long as you come back to get us,” Vera replied, and the Captain grunted an affirmation. She gestured her husband along to the left side of the ship, the rest following them, their silence too silent and tense to ensure much comfort.

“Calm before the storm,” Lewis murmured, mostly to himself, even being a man of considerable height and strength peculiar for the typical explorer, his knees nearly knocked together as he stood waiting with supplies strapped to his back, steadying his shaking arms by gripping the straps. Each of them settled into the boat with a silence about them, all mutually agreeing that whatever Pandyssia had for them, they would still endeavor to survive it.

Curses and calls rang along the side of the ship, while the whale let out a long echoing groan from its restraints, and the small boat was lowered down tenderly to the hungry waves. The water thudded on the bottom of the boat, and the Captain yelled what seemed like a farewell, ending in something along the lines of “crazy fuckers.”

Vera met her husband’s eyes, saw the gradual fear rising up within them, and said, “Lewis, would you do the honors?”

He nodded while the color just gradually drained from his face, endeavoring then to not meet the eyes of the rest of the group. One tug on the cord of the engine and the boat went puttering along to the shoreline. Once they were well away, the whaling ship roared to life and sailed gently away, back to safety.

“Never been to Pandyssia before, Inchmouth?” Vera said.

“No, madam. I only wrote about the carving interpretations of Dr. Hazian,” he replied.

“I’d be interested to see those journals. Do you have them?”

“Indeed, to aid me with my own experiences, you see,” he replied. “But they’re not really fit for a lady of your stature to–”

“Do you study for the same reasons my husband does?”

“If you mean to aid the Abbey in understanding the evil we’re up against, then I’d have to say yes. It’s important that we find some way to expose these evils before they consume us.”

It seemed that this man didn’t understand the meaning of expedition. “The Abbey believes a load of myth, especially that, what was it...we’ll all be swallowed up by the Void? Something like that.” Vera said. “Do you really believe the Void would stomach a place like Dunwall?”

“Ah, yes, that’s my wife. She’s a bit of an eccentric,” Preston said, laughing and clearing his dry throat, avoiding his wife’s dagger-eyes. “Attention everyone! Today’s goal will solely be to get a ways into the trees, where we will set up camp and debrief. Under no circumstances is anyone to leave our group.”

They all nodded a little, save for Vera, becoming more and more aware of the miniscule size of their boat in comparison to the massive trees, the Pandyssia that appeared to be a huge gaping mouth, sucking them further and further in until they could scarcely see the sky. The figures of the trees got larger and larger until they were so close that they noticed they could wrap their arms around the thickest roots and not encompass them. The shore, streaked with glowing whale oil, seemed like a patch of new earth that had just sprung up from beneath the ocean in preparation for their arrival. It was new ground, yet ancient, and it seemed to open up its arms to welcome the small group into its depths.


	2. Day 1

It was one matter to examine Pandyssia’s treeline, and quite another to walk inside of it. Little streaks of sun filtered in through the tree canopy, down to the root-covered uneven forest floor and a tiny clearing where the expedition group was just beginning to set up their camp. They fired off a few grappling hooks up and over the tree branches, to hook a long rope ending in a hanging tent. This wasn’t the first of the expeditions to the continent. Explorers before them had thought of the hanging tents, to avoid the swarms of rats roaming the continent. Not just because they were gross or dirty, but because Pandyssian bull rats were famous for herding and picking clean a living body in under a minute.

Vera thought of this as she strung up her own tent, the rope corded underneath her ungloved hands, watching as Preston struggled a bit with his own. It hadn’t crossed her mind to share a tent with him, but maybe some other time.

“Need help?” She said.

He fumbled with the rope a bit before giving in. “Yes, please. I can’t remember how to tie the knot.”

She made short work of the knotting, sitting down in it with her feet dangling off the ground to test it. “Yep, that should do it.”

The tents hung like tiny pendulums from the branches, and in the center, their cook, Layton, had begun the first meal, unpacking tins of whale meat, brined hagfish, jellied eels, blood sausage, apricot tartlets, apples, canned pears, and a myriad of spices. What he planned to do with them, the Morays had left for him to decide, him being the cook at their manor back home. The dug fire pit in the center of the camp flickered and cast shadows onto their faces as the sun set. He stirred a pot of what appeared to be stew, which would take far too long to cook.

“Trying to starve us already, Layton?” Preston asked him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, which the cook brushed off immediately afterwards.

“I wasn’t aware I was serving a band of children,” he replied. “You can wait. Go poke around at some poisonous plants, while you’re at it. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“Still mad at me?”

“I appreciate you, Moray. Bringing a man out of being a poor pastry chef in the middle district and hiring him onto be a chef? That’s noble. Dragging him out to a place like this? Inhumane.” He said, smiling slightly and always with his eyes on his work, throwing in spices with the hand that wasn’t stirring.

“You’ll be just fine,” Preston replied. “I’ll take the group out a ways to get out of your hair.”

Layton ran a hand over his receding hairline, smiled, and watched Preston talk to the rest of the group. They ventured out a ways into the forest, headed northeast to see what might lie ahead of them. Preston and Vera took each other’s hands and pulled each other over the roots of the trees, the other four behind them.

“Call out if you see anything move,” Ashlyn, the weaponeer, called out, balancing a loaded crossbow in one hand as she navigated the roots.

“So you’ll just shoot anything and everything that moves?” Mae, the biologist, replied.

“You can poke at it when it’s stuck to a tree,” Ashlyn replied, shrugging, until she stumbled on something her foot was caught in. They were smaller roots, attached to a small bud that was more like a tiny hole in the ground, yet lined with red and what looked like sticky mucus. It released a small puff of greenish gas around Ashlyn’s ankles. “What the hell?”

“Don’t move!” Mae said, while the rest watched. She bent down and looked at the plant, hovering just above the level of the small bit of gas. “Is that...there’s rat bones in the bud! Oh this is exciting!”

“Indubitably,” Ashlyn replied, not having moved from where her foot was caught under a root. Slowly, the roots moved and sprung to life, wrapping themselves around Ashlynn’s ankles and tugging, yet not strong enough to move her.

Mae was scribbling wildly like any other biologist would have. “Interesting,” she said. “It seems to be trying to tug you into the bud.”

While Mae stood scribbling with Ashlynn thus held captive, Vera tugged her husband a ways away, to where she had seen something glinting in between the roots of a tree. She shook off his questions and stooped to pluck up the thing from where it was half submerged in dark earth. It was a round, disc-like thing, white and shined from weather, but with tiny intricate carvings set into it, bits of wood and colored stone adhered to the sides, as if to somewhat frame the design. It felt warm to the touch. Preston was trying to tell her to be careful when she wrapped both hands around it, then in the corner of her eye, she saw someone, a figure, hovering between the two trees in the distance, a wisp of a person, with black eyes like swirling maelstroms. He disappeared when Preston took the disc away from her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She blinked, eyes darting between him and the spot where she had seen the figure. “Yes, just fine. I uh. I just would like to head back to the camp. I’m tired.”

“What did you see?” Preston said, seizing her wrist when Vera started to walk away.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, and it wasn’t necessarily a lie. She wrapped her fingers through Preston’s, made note of when he tucked the object into his coat pocket, and guided him back to where the rest of their group was prodding at the strange flora, objects caught between the roots of the trees. Lewis was holding up an intact skull he had found under one of the roots, which was similarly carved and streaked with something purple and blue, purple heavily around the eye sockets. He tucked it into his satchel and said “just more evidence for the Abbey” when he saw the apprentice staring at him.

A scream then rang through the trees, and it didn't take any time for the group of them to go running towards the camp. Yet when they got there, there at first didn't seem to be anything wrong, but nothing moved. All that was there was the skeleton, mostly picked clean and glinting white and orange in the light of the cooking pot, the food itself untouched, jaw open and gaping. Tendons and bits of hair still clung to the joints, the skull, and the smell of blood filled the air. The ground drank the splotch of blood underneath. Where there was only moments before a life, a pulse, and a voice, there was nothing except this remnant of a human, and a large white rat, running its paws over its face, then scampering away.

"That isn't," Lewis said quietly. "That can't be."

"Of course it can be," Vera said. "It's Layton."

Preston cleared his throat and said shakily, "From now on, not one person will be left alone. Clear?" 


	3. Day 5

The first four days passed without much more tragedy. Preston gathered up each of Layton’s bones and sealed them shut in his tent bag, wrapping the tent up and stuffing it into his pack. “Layton has a family back home,” he explained to Vera, who had been away so long that she had hardly known the house cook. “Two kids. I guess they’re orphans now.” Still in Vera’s mind, it was strange to be carrying around Layton’s remains where there really was so little left, but she offered to carry it for Preston sometimes. He always thanked her quietly, the dark spots under his eyes visible while he couldn't avoid her gaze. They had to keep their heads clear, he insisted when she asked him if he was okay. He said there would be time for mourning later, when he'd have to explain to two young girls that he had forced their father to come along on the expedition he was killed for. They had divvied up carrying his supplies among them, and they carried on into the forest.  

Out of the first four days, two of them were mostly spent traveling, crawling across roots and strange plants deeper and deeper into the forest until they couldn’t hope to see the shoreline behind them. They had discovered little so far, but they were traveling into a cove-like formation of mountains to the caves set into the Red Cliffs, the area of which was suspected to house a civilization buried by the nature that insisted to grow on top of it when the people living in it fled. They had found a few things, though, including pieces of a column-like formation entrapped under a tree, and that some of the trees had been hollowed out. When they pressed their ears to some of the trees, they heard the scurrying and squeaks of bull rats.

On the fifth day of the expedition, they woke up in their hanging tents where they had temporarily set up their camp next to a small pond, which they guessed they could drink from and bathe in when morning came. Vera woke up with her husband's arm tucked around her waist, to the sound of birds emitting their long shrill morning howls, in the tent he had to join her in when his own had become too tangled in its rope without the bag around it. She didn't mind that much, she decided, pressing a long kiss on his forehead when he was just beginning to stir, then clambering out of the tent, feet aching when they hit the ground. It was strange to wake up in a place they had arrived at night and suddenly be aware of the surroundings in the daylight. She stepped towards the pond and peered down in it, and a fish swiveled under the surface, red fish with spikes that faded into a purple hue at the tips. When she took a step closer, it fired a spike at her, just past her cheek, and it stuck in the dirt. It occurred to her that she should wake up Mae, but she wondered if there was a way she could get the fish out of the pond without contaminating it. The spike had leaked purple into the soil, and she guessed it was some sort of poison. As she was wondering this, she heard the clang of a crossbow, and the fish was stuck through with a crossbow bolt.

"Sorry to startle you, Lady Moray," Ashlynn said, smiling at her as she loaded another bolt. "But if I'm to keep anyone safe on this trip, it should be you Morays."

Vera didn't reply. She just watched as the fish's blood spread through the water and the poison seeped out of each of its purple spikes.

"What's the matter?"

"You just effectively poisoned our main source of water," Vera replied.

"I'm sorry," she sighed. "Truly. I just get too carried away sometimes." Reaching down into the water, she picked up the bolt that the fish was skewered on and pushed it off with the end of her bow.

"So, why did you come on this trip?" Vera asked.

"That's a funny way to ask someone about themselves," Ashlynn replied. "Truth is, I'm little more than a hired gun on this expedition. I mean, I do work for the City Watch, but I can't exactly test out and develop new weapons in a place like this." She laughed lightly, setting down her bow to run her fingers through her orange mane of hair and tie it back.

"What were you before you were a weaponeer?"

"Not much, really. My mom walked out, dad died, and my older brother raised up the money to put me through school. He went through a lotta shit to get me to where I am. He's a mechanic himself now, working on the trawlers and trains."

"That's admirable," Vera said, though in a monotone. She looked back to see the apprentice, Blake, clambering out of his tent, rubbing at his foot. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing." He said, though there was a clear blood spot in the shape of two dashes on the end of his toe. "I guess my foot was hanging out too low and something nipped me. Hurts a little. I'm sure it's nothing."

"Lewis should have some bandages on him. Wake him up," Ashlynn said. "Lazy bastard could do with a little less rest."

Instead of having pity conflict in her expedition group, Vera walked over to where Lewis' tent was hanging and prodded him with the end of her pistol. Lewis opened his eyes sleepily, and, seeing the gun, yelled and fell out of his tent.

"Get up and get packed, Lewis. We have to keep moving," Vera said.

"Damn woman, can't you wake a man up in a kinder way?" Lewis replied.

She ignored him and set back to her own tent, where Preston was finishing packing. When she came up to him to take the load of the skeleton he had slung over his shoulder, but he shrugged her off, saying quickly "it's ok, I've got it" and setting off behind the others as they started to head further in, Ashlynn walking to the back of them in order to have better defense, the Morays and Lewis in front.

The trees around them had grown thicker, yet smaller and more colored. When before the trees had grown in ashen hues, they took on tints of blue and purple as they got further inland and pressed inwards, as if squeezing the environment to deter them from their goal. Sometimes they grew so send that one had to toss their pack to the other while they squeezed in sideways, then pressing their luggage through. Vera shimmied through one of these and took Lewis' pack after he passed her back and then his. As he squeezed through, she reached a hand into his pack and took out the journal she'd been dying to read.

"You shouldn't read that, my lady," Lewis said quickly.

"I think that's something I'll decide for myself. Besides, I should know previous information in my area of study."

Lewis slung his pack over a shoulder and grimaced when she cracked the spine. "Yes, but some passages are dark, m'lady."

If looks could kill, hers would skewer him. "We are in the darkness. Why not know it better?"

Overhearing this, Preston cut in, "May I look over it, too? I'm probably too interested in reading about the existing interpretations of the carvings."

Lewis looked like he wanted to snatch the book right back out of Vera's hands. He didn't know what it was, but when he saw Vera pour with hungry eyes over the pages, he got a sinking feeling in his gut. Yet as it was, he couldn't say too much, so he said, "Yes, of course."

As they kept walking, they didn't notice at first that their group was one less than it was earlier, not until they heard another scream not too far behind them. When they followed the scream back, they came to a massive version of the carnivorous plant they had seen earlier, but it hadn't been the most effective. Ashlynn had woken up. The group struggled to pry open the massive bud, cutting at it, unable to do much else should they harm Ashlynn inside. In the end, she was the one to cut it open, and the sides of the bud recoiled back, hacked to pieces from the inside when she freed one arm from the sticky inside.

When it sprung open, most of Ashlynn's skin was already  eaten away. Her skin steamed in places where the acid had eaten through her clothes, exposing the raw red corded muscle underneath. A few ribs sparkled white as her chest heaved, eyes wide open and struggling for breath while the acid seeped into her lungs, an organ pulsating and exposed to the open air. It wasn't long before the light faded from her eyes, her only mercy.

"What should we do?" Blake said, the color faded from his face.

"The bud is a pit already," Vera said. "Gather some wood and we'll burn her there."

"Dear–" Preston said.

"Burning is a more honorable resting place than being eaten by a damn plant," Vera said. "We'll get her pack off her and then burn it all.”

"That will just attract whatever the hell's in this forest to this spot," Lewis said.

"Then we leave. Quickly," Vera said. "Mae, please help me get Ashlynn's pack."

Mae nodded, her eyes red and raw, with tears streaking the dirt on her face. "Of course, ma'am."

When they tugged at the pack, a sickly smell of acid and flesh filled their air, and Blake finally ran a little ways off to empty his stomach forcefully onto the ground. They couldn't get the pack free, so Vera took pried the sword out of its sheathe on Ashlynn's side and cut it open, handing Mae the case of grenades, bolts, bullets, a few pistols, and spring razors. They also took out a small container of whale oil and matches. Even later in life, Vera wasn't sure why she smeared a bit of the faintly glowing oil on her fingertips and painted patterns onto the pieces still remaining of Ashlynn's face, but they resembled the carvings they had seen on the island, which almost felt right. Then she sprinkled the stuff onto Ashlynn's body and, urging everybody back, threw a match from afar. The place exploded in a rush of flame and crackled, the roots of the plant shrinking and coiling in on themselves. All they could do, as always, was to keep moving. 


	4. Day 5, the beginning

After they had set fire to Ashlynn’s remains, they walked probably ten miles into the jungle before stopping to camp. They had made it about halfway to the red cliffs, or at least from what they could tell. In the four days following, the forest became strangely quiet, and so did the remaining expedition group. Anxiety settled into weariness, and weariness into desperation, so that by the time they had just barely reached their ultimate destination, it was uncertain just how they were going to accomplish their goal. On the tenth day, they couldn’t be sure if the sun rose, but the sky got a bit lighter, just as the oil in their lamps was burning out.   
Vera first noticed the smell of warm wet earth, and that was all she noticed for a while. She had been dreaming vividly of Serkonos, the temperate isle with a bustling fishing and farming industry with its lively ports and ships with flapping sails. A vivid dream that convinced her she was there, but her reality was that she was hanging in a tent with the husband she had been endeavoring to know, in a forest in Pandyssia where the ground seemed to have its mouth gaping open to swallow them. She noticed Preston beginning to wake up, stretching as much as he could in the small tent even before he opened his eyes, which parted heavily above a full beard and mustache. She had been telling him stories occasionally, about her travels and the stories she heard while there, and they seemed to calm him more than herself.   
“Good morning,” he murmured.   
“No nightmares?”  
“No, not last night. Too tired,” he replied, curling in closer to her, while her fingers reached around and brushed the soft hairs still at the nape of his neck. “But the closer we come to the cliffs, the less I sleep.” His hand laid on the small of her waist and gently tugged her in close, to press his lips to her sleepily and yet desperately. “You changed so much when you were away.”  
“So did you,” Vera replied.   
“We went out into the world separately to become equals.”  
“What?”  
“Dunno, just a thought that came to mind. Did you...give Lewis’ journal back to him?”  
“Not yet,” Vera replied. She hadn’t, because in the times where she needed to preoccupy herself, she had read the journal over almost twice, and now she understood why he didn’t want her to see it, even if she didn’t agree. “It’s not as awful as Lewis lets on. You can read it if you want, but you seem too tired to focus on much lately.”   
“Can you blame me?” He replied. He had hired on the people who had died, and it weighed heavy on his shoulders.   
She shook her head and ran a gentle hand over her husband’s cheek to brush the hair from his face. The journal’s topics had been no less than tantalizing, especially when she thought of how fleeting their lives were, that all there was to her husband was flesh and bone, easily stripped away.   
Lewis’ commentary on the interpretations of a Dr. Hazian called them ignorant, misinformed. In the caves there was painted a figure, a spirit, who granted people power, including that which allowed someone to avoid mortality by attaching themselves to some sort of object. Lewis interpreted the paintings, and concluded that the object should be taken from the “monster” and burned.  
In light of what had happened recently, with tiredness and the beginnings of madness lingering in Vera’s mind, it was tempting to seek out becoming this monster that could defy mortality.  
"We should get moving," Vera replied. To her husband, she needed to look strong, so Preston would not take on her sorrows as well. She also needed to look proper and even-headed, which she was not feeling lately. The cans they had brought along with them were steadily depleting, and without a cook to aid them, everything she ate sat cold in her stomach and did not seem to fill her.  
Her husband nodded, reluctant to leave the safe warm haven of their tent. They slept in their clothes, so when they rolled out of the tent, their bodies were ready far sooner than their minds. Vera emerged first to find Mae, Lewis, and Blake sitting on decaying fallen trees around an insubstantial fire, their faces gray and thinner than they had been when they began. Preston stepped from his tent and sighed at the sight of the rest of them. Vera met his eye and wondered if he knew he should really be somewhat more motivational than that. They both knew that Blake was a quiet young man, but since the incident with Ashlynn, he had scarcely said anything at all and sometimes jumped when his name was called. His eyes were dark and he complained of feeling ill through moans when he moved or had walked a while.   
"Good morning, all," Preston said meekly, to a response of some waves and a grunt of acknowledgement from Blake. Preston walked up to Blake and patted him on the shoulder, at which Blake winced.  
"Feeling any better?" Preston asked. Blake shook his head and wiped a speck of some unidentifiable substance from his mouth. "Well, stay behind and pack up while we look around a while, to find a good path further inland."  
"I've looked a bit," Mae interjected as she took off her glasses and rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes. "There is one that seems…well-trodden, but it is free of any substantially sized plants or obstacles."  
"Well-trodden. How is that possible?" Lewis asked.  
"It just looks well-worn. I did spy…a footprint. Possibly human, possibly not. It's old though, so it was hard to tell," Mae replied. "I don't know. Maybe I should look somewhere else."  
"At this point, I'd be glad to see a person and not a creature or man-eating plant, sane or not. At least we can shoot them before they get to us," Lewis said. He had taken the responsibility of carrying the weapons they had gotten off Ashlynn, and he patted the gun at his side as a reminder.  
"Well, we have little other choices," Preston said wearily. He idly withdrew a calendar book from a pocket in his coat, flipped it open and ran his fingers along the charted days. He scribbled out the day before with a pen and was about to close it when he noticed a tiny annotation on the day that he predicted it was.   
"It's the 28th day of the Month of Songs. I'm sure they're all preparing for the Fugue Feast in Dunwall," he said, sighing.  
"I've always made it a point to be abroad during the Fugue Feast," Vera glared at her husband. "Tasteless anarchy for two days…the two days when the Abbey finally gives over humanity to the lingering chaos and forgives them all their disgusting crimes over those days."  
"It keeps the peace every other day of the year," Lewis replied quietly as rifled through his pack. While looking in it, he took an Overseer's mask he had and set it on the ground. Vera could see the small book of the Seven Scrictures laying in the reverse side of the ugly brass mask fashioned into an angry person's visage.  
"What in the Void," Vera spat. "Made you think bringing that here was a good idea."  
"It helps," Lewis replied. "Keeps me sane." He donned the mask, and as Vera observed, looked much more like himself that way.  
Preston interjected, "Well, the more we're here, the more I understand the Abbey's beliefs. This world…is full of terrors. And chaos. And it's all against humanity. We need order and protection, or we'll end up like the civilization that was here."  
Vera speculated him quietly with narrowed eyes and then at Lewis. She felt words on the tip of her tongue, ready to bite, but Lewis was watching her behind his mask. He had no authority here and for the new two days during the Fugue Feast, but back in Dunwall, he had the power to accuse her of being a witch or a heretic and having her arrested, all her possessions stripped of her. She stayed quiet, though she thought if they were people born of the chaos and the Void, then darkness was their natural state.  
"Fair point, my love" she replied instead, then a chorus of voices began humming around them.   
Lewis stood straight up, still in the mask, with a pistol in hand. Footsteps thudded and skidded through the underbrush around them, though no one could tell where it was from as they stared wide-eyed into the foliage around them.  
Fools, fools. They almost sang.   
Lewis took aim and yelled, "I see them!" Then a shot fired from the end of his pistol, hot light burning in the darkness of the tree canopies.   
It was quiet suddenly. Vera asked him, "What? What did you see?"  
Lewis shook his head. "I don't know. I just saw where they were moving. Maybe I grazed one?"  
"You don't even know whether there is one or several," Vera replied, to the eruption of laughter, endless cackling laughter that cut them to the bone. Otherworldly laughter that made them feel like specks of dirt and swelled louder before fading away.  
Everyone else was shivering, but Vera noticed she was not. She felt perfectly at ease, and she didn't yet understand it.  
  
"


	5. Into the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize no one checks this, and if they did, they don't anymore. I just recently made progress with it while I was stuck on other pieces, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy my macabre fic.

The hollow calls of birds resonated through the treetops and made them feel higher than ever before, though no one could tell if the trees were getting bigger or just seemed so. Mae stood speculating the roots of one tree. It's long spindly grey roots crept over all that was below it and scraped a sample of the bark with a small sharp knife, tucking it into her book. The others mainly watched her warily, because she had insisted on stopping to observe a few trees closely.   
Blake was lying on a long, wide root and holding his eyes shut. Vera stood some ways from him, eyeing him, next to her husband who was incessantly scribbling in his journal. It seemed to have become almost a force of habit for him, Vera noticed. Preston was coping, even if poorly. Lewis stood dutifully the closest to Mae, his Overseer's mask a comical visor casting a shadow over his eyes. He complained that it was too sweaty, but Vera thought he seemed nervous wearing it, as if it put him at the front lines of some invisible battle. It had been five days of simply walking since they had all heard the voices, but it still had everyone on edge.  
"I've seen so many of these trees that sometimes I forget to really look at them," Mae remarked, mostly to herself. Her wide eyes roved over the massive tree, still somehow hungry to know more about this place. Its trunk could only be encircled by the extended arms' length of about fifteen men.   
Lewis looked around at the roots himself and said, "Well, that's not the interesting part of this spot."  
"Pardon?" Mae said, more than a little annoyed.  
"I may have found a wall," Lewis replied. He stepped closer into the huge roots of the tree and outstretched his hand. His fingers met cool, gray brick, speckled with moss and carved with tiny, intricate symbols. He withdrew a small journal and began to slowly copy those that he could.   
"This must be one of the old Pandyssia's buildings…and the tree simply grew on top of it," Mae said, eyes looking from the roots to the canopy. The tree had nearly encased the remainder of this building in roots which spidered into smaller and smaller pieces, and the brick seemed to be slowly cracking under the sheer weight. "Don't touch it much," Mae said. "It's unsound. Look." She gently ran a finger over a large violent crack in the brick.  
"Well, it seems to have held up a long time," Lewis replied. "It should be fine. All I'd like is a bit of the brick."  
Preston had come over and looked at the wall, then at Lewis. "Could this be…the first evidence of the Pandyssian country?"  
"I think so," Lewis replied, almost smiling.  
"I wonder how many more there are like it," Preston said, then beckoning Vera, who coaxed Blake along to the rest of the group. "Make as many sketches of it as you can. This will be exciting to bring back to Dunwall's scientific community."  
"It's just a wall," Mae replied, shrugging. "I've made many more discoveries in the biology field…I believe." She said tentatively before continuing to observe the tree.   
Blake seemed to be nearly bent over with exhaustion. His face had been gradually losing its color, but he still tried to look enthusiastic about whatever his mentor was excited about.  
"Care to make some notes, Blake?" Lewis said. "Being in the presence of such a discovery will look great in your portfolio."  
Vera side-eyed him. He suddenly became so scholarly at the sight of a stack of bricks. The wall vaguely interested her, but she had a sort of sinking feeling that the jungles had much more in store for them. She spotted a gap in the wall, on the right corner, which the tree seemed to be trying to cover with a small branch. She approached the tree and began sawing at the base of the branch with a serrated knife.   
"Dear, what are you doing?"   
Vera withdrew her whale oil lamp from her belt, clicked it on, and held it through the gap.  
"There's a passage here, and it seems to lead somewhere downwards." Vera said. She pried the weakened branch and tossed it away.  
"Please, dear. Wait," Preston said, a hand on her arm. "You don't know what's down there. Let us finish our notes on the wall, then we can try to see what's inside."  
"Probably just a pile of rubble anyway," Lewis said, not looking up from his notebook.  
"Please," Vera said, shaking off her husband's grasp. "Don't touch me."  
"Vera…" Preston replied.  
"And don't look at me like that," Vera said, huffing.   
"What are you doing?" Mae said frantically, while Lewis was slowly chipping away a small portion of the brick, in the center of the large crack.   
Lewis plucked a piece of brick from the wall that was about the size of his palm and pocketed it. "All types of scientists collect samples, Mae." He said this just as crunching resounded in the walls, and leaves began to fall on them. The tree was tipping and the wall slowly but surely falling apart.  
"Where do we go?" Mae yelled, over the sound of it all.  
"In here," Vera said, gesturing beyond the wall. "If we go anywhere else, we may be crushed."  
"We don't know-" Lewis said, frozen.  
"Go inside, or die," Vera yelled. She led the way as they all ran in, and she yelled, "Down! Down here!" Her feet nearly skidded down a steep declining path, covered in mud and stinking of something she couldn't place.  
The walls behind them broke, and the way in crashed shut behind them. In the darkness, they could hear the tree above them stretching and its roots ripping free of the ground, before the enormous crash of it falling to the jungle floor shook them violently.   
They all stood in quiet shock. Vera handed her lamp to her husband, who took it quietly, and lit his.  
"Go on, light your lanterns everyone," she said. "We can find a way out of here."  
In silence, each of them clicked on their lamps, and the blue flames stirred life in the darkness. The air around them whirled, as if there was some wind coming from somewhere. With all the lights on, they could barely make out where they were. The light caught more gray bricks, but of buildings, empty houses, rows of them. The windows gaped emptily as eyes on either side of empty doorframes gaping wide like mouths in agony. It was quiet, and deathly so.  
Preston gasp. "I believe we've found a whole town here."  
"We'll never get out alive," Blake said, groaning and falling to his knees. "I feel as if I'm…" He clapped his hands to his eyes, and something warm seeped out from between his fingers. "I feel as if I'm crying."  
"Get your hands away from your face, son," Lewis said tenderly. "Let me see. Did you hit your head?"  
As Blake pulled his hands away from his face, the dim blue lamplight caught the sight of him. Blood was leaking from Blake's eyes, pouring in torrents down his temples.   
"Please. Please help me," Blake said. "Please!" He leapt up and began grabbing at Lewis' shirt, groaning. His fingers curled, as if to scratch Lewis.   
"No, get off me." Lewis tried to push him away, but Blake kept coming at him frantically and weakly. "I don't know how to help. Now if you would please calm down…"  
For some reason she couldn't fathom, Vera touched the rune that she kept in her coat pocket. She saw the same figure again, and his outline was wreathed in a thin white sketch, his eyes missing, or like black holes.  
The doom of Pandyssia  
"Get away from him!" Vera said, holding her knife to Blake's throat. "Or it's more than your eyes that will be bleeding."  
Blake laughed loudly and madly, and the sound of it echoed down the tunnels. "Thank you," he said, before pressing his own throat to and down the knife. It cut like paper, and his blood ran boiling hot down his shirt. Vera yelled and took the knife from him, but then it was too late. She panted and stared eyes-wide at the fallen figure and tossed the knife aside, and her eyes looked to where the figure had been. It was gone. Preston had a spray of blood on his shirt, and his eyes were empty with shock.   
"Take that off," Vera said.  
"What?"  
"Take off your shirt. Didn't you see? He was sick. It could spread to you. Just take that thing off and leave it behind.  
Mae and Lewis watched them, and Mae said quietly, "I think so too. I've never seen anything like it but-"  
"We should have done something," Lewis said, eyes watering while he threw aside his coat and pulled at the buttons of his shirt. "It was so obvious. I thought he was just tired or traumatized or-"  
"No, doctor," Mae said. "You couldn't have done anything." She clutched the notebook she still held to her chest, trying to keep herself from shaking.  
"You saw it, right?" Vera said to Lewis. "He did it himself."  
"Yes, I saw," Lewis replied steadily. "He was clearly mad with illness."  
"I don't even know if that's the word to describe it," Preston said, buttoning up his new shirt and putting it on before his coat and swinging the bag of bones back over his shoulder. They clacked together meaninglessly. "He seemed…not himself. At all. He hardly seemed…like a human."  
Vera wrapped her hand around Preston's and gently pulled him away from Blake's body. "We must not try to take him, dearie. His body is corrupted."  
"Just like Ashylnn's was," Preston said quietly.  
"Yes," Vera said.   
"Let's get going," Lewis interjected. "We need to find a place to camp before…well, I guess it's always past sundown here."  
"One of the buildings down here should do," Mae said meekly. "They look to be fine, compared to what we just saw."  
Then, they heard the squeals of rats somewhere in the cave. It was so echoey and so large that it was difficult to discern where the sounds were coming from.  
"They'll come for Blake," Vera said. "We must get away from him. Come on." She tugged Preston along, rubbing his back to comfort him, though it felt futile. Her husband only nodded and allowed himself to be guided along, further down into the dark depths of Pandyssia.


	6. Of dreams

As they walked further and further into the caves, a music-like sound of scraping could be heard coming from one of the dark doorways of a large building, which they at first passed.  
Lewis gritted his teeth. "What the hell is that awful sound?"  
Vera hushed him and listened intently. "Let's look," she replied, turning back and peering around the doorway. The noise amplified as she got closer, and she saw a dull glow emanating from the place, in the back of the empty black room. She brought her lamp closer in, and it illuminated a small room with steps leading up to the back. Dark shapes of a crude table loomed, and she could scarcely make out the shapes of rough curtains that looked to be made by hand. Enamored, she stepped inside, her husband following closely although the others protested. Vera ran her hands along the rough, purple-stained fabric that stopped just at the base of the stairs. The scraping was louder and louder in her ears, and if she listened closely enough, she thought she could make out voices in them. On what now appeared to be an altar, there sat a single circular bone-white object carved with runes. It was singing with some sort of magical power, Vera pondered. She reached out to touch it but was stopped by her husband. His hand on her shoulder seemed to bring her back from her trance. Her mind had felt like it was slowly leaving her, being consumed by the things she had seen and was seeing. She frowned but didn't pull away.  
"It's terrible," Preston whispered. "Isn't it? The stains on the floors…"  
Vera then noticed the wide dark stains adorning the altar's floor. She lifted her boot from one such stain, and it seemed to be slightly sticky.   
"I must write about this," Lewis said, though less presumptuous than he had been when he was sketching the wall. He stood and wrote furiously, which seemed comical to Vera. She eyed him wearily.  
"My dear, promise me you won't touch whatever that is…that's making the sound," Preston said, catching Vera's attention.  
"I won't," Vera said flatly. Her hand itched for the similar rune in her pocket.  
"We should take up camp here and rest a while, so we can all collect ourselves," Preston said to the group. "It appears to be a temple of worship of some sort."  
"This blood is relatively fresh, it seems," Mae said quietly. "Though it's hard to tell in this light. That means…someone was here recently."  
"We don't know that for certain, and we can defend ourselves if need be," Lewis said. "I think what we've seen today so far could prove to be one of the most important discoveries so far. The Abbey will receive me well." He seemed a little giddy with eyes wide, trying to absorb all that he could.   
His mind was beginning to come unhinged, Vera thought. Pandyssia takes the minds of all people who enter.   
"Our weapons didn't save Layton. Or Ashlynn. Or Blake," Mae said. "And they especially won't save us if we're killed in our sleep."  
"At least one of us will remain awake at all times to ensure the others' safety," Preston said. "Mae, please. Collect yourself."  
Mae nodded. "Yes, alright. But…may I have a pistol?"   
Preston looked between his wife and the members of the group, who all looked indifferent to it, and he shrugged off the bag of Layton's bones and his own bag. He reached into it, withdrew one of the three pistols and handed it to her. She grabbed it by the handle, smiled, and tucked it into her belt.   
"Good?" Preston said.  
"Yes, thank you," Mae said meekly.  
"We'll lay out our sleeping mats here, given the lack of trees," Preston laughed hollowly. "Lewis when you can, please find something to barricade the doors."  
"Like what?" Lewis said. "All there is here is that blasted table thing."  
"There are surely other rooms in this place. It's larger on the outside than this room," Preston replied.  
"And please…" Vera said. "Do watch the way you speak here. We are in someone else's domain, after all."  
"How do we know there is anyone at all?" Lewis replied. "We haven't seen one. Besides, anyone who manages to live here must be some sort of subhuman."   
"No, but we have heard them," Vera replied. "Something that is heard but not seen is even more dangerous than something that is seen and therefore prove-able. So, speak lightly of things you know nothing about."   
"And you do?" Lewis asked. "Do you?"  
"No," Vera said, feeling the lie on her tongue. Or was it a lie? She wasn't so sure what she knew about this place anymore.   
Preston's hands were on her shoulders again. "Dear, come. Let's lay out our bags and lie down."  
"The song has stopped," she replied, looking to the rune on the shrine.  
Preston followed her eyes. "Yes, I suppose that noise stopped when we were talking. Now we'll just rest better."   
Vera nodded and shrugged off her pack, feeling numb. She thought to herself that she should be more careful what she said. Preston might notice and worry over her as well as all of the others. He very literally often bore the burdens of those passed on his back. So Vera agreed to lie out her sleeping back and shuffle into it, feeling absolutely as restless as before. Preston laid down directly next to her and pulled the bag around himself. Mae had done the same on the other side of the room from the altar in a corner and fell fast asleep, with the handle of her gun shining out from under her pillow.   
"Please put all the lamps out when you're through, Lewis," Preston said. "We'll waste oil fast, especially here."  
"Right," Lewis said. He finally clapped shut his notebook and began looking around for anything to put in front of the gaping doorway. He disappeared to the other room and soon came back with a door, while shoving along a chest with his feet. "This'll do. Why would anyone take this door off?" He shoved the door back in place and held it up with the chest, not looking at it at all. He then reclined on the steps on the shrine, silently volunteering to keep watch.  
"Dear, I've got something for you," Preston said.   
"What is it?" Vera asked.  
"I was going to wait to give it to you until right after we got back onto a boat but…now seem as good a time as any to lighten your mood a little."  
He took a necklace the front pocket of his pack and handed it to her gingerly. Vera took it, and the metal felt heavy in her hands. It seemed to be a sort of cameo , and there was a white shape on the dark pendant of it.  
"I know you can't see it now, but it's a silhouette of you," Lewis said. "I had it carved back in Dunwall from that painting that Sokolov made of you. It's accurate, don't you think?"  
Vera couldn't quite make out the shape in the dim lamplight, but she nodded and strung it around her neck. The cameo sat perfectly in the middle of the collar on her shirt, and the pearls cascaded just below her neck. It seemed a silly thing to have in a place like this, but it felt like home. "Yes. It's lovely. Thank you, dearie."  
"You're welcome," Preston smiled, then pecked Vera on the cheek before lying down. He was smiling as he fell asleep.   
Rather like a pet pleased with himself, Vera thought, then wondering at the animosity of her own thoughts. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling a little and unclipping it. She felt at ease lying there, somehow. Even with the sickly smell of blood floating to her nose. She wondered if anyone else could smell it, and how they could be asleep if so.  
Her eyes fluttered shut and open again, shut and open again, for what seemed like hours. Then, she dreamed fitfully, and she kept seeing Blake's face, his throat being cut by an invisible knife. Blood poured from his eyes and from the gash in his neck, and he was muttering something she couldn't make out. Then his eyes were empty, and he seemed to look at her and say something.   
Will you accept, Vera Moray? Accept my power? Accept the cost? I wonder…  
Her eyes opened once more. She felt sick and found that Lewis was snoring loudly from where he was sitting on the steps. The lamps were all out, she thought, but she saw their scattered glow on the ceiling. As she stared and sat up, she could plainly see a lantern had been smashed to the floor, glowing whale oil glittering dully on the floor. She stood. Something felt not quite right, more severe than a simple smashed lamp. She stood and could see a glow from behind the doorway. Whatever it was whispered quietly, but the light looked like it was sunlight. She felt at her cameo and thought to wake Preston. She nudged him with her foot, but he wouldn't stir. His face seemed grey and distant, almost as if he were dead. She knew he wasn't. He couldn't be.  
No, no. Something said, in a crisp clear voice. Go outside, Vera Moray. You will find me there.  
Vera gasped and looked around. There was no one inside. She walked slowly to the door and pressed her hands to the splintered wood of the door. She looked back at the others, who were all motionless, and pressed her weight to the side of the chest to wiggle the door frame just enough so she could squeeze through. The light of the apparent day was at first too bright. She felt air whirling around her ears, setting her jet black hair whipping around her face. Then she realized something.   
She was nowhere at all. Not in Pandyssia. Not in Dunwall. What she stood on was a chunk of floating earth in a numerous series of chunks and paths in an endless sky with hues of blue and grey and green and purple all mingling into the other. Objects floated around her - lamp posts and swords and pistols and an entire whaling trawler. She felt breath escaping her. It felt as if she were very high up, but she couldn't tell, nor could she believe she was where she thought she might be. Yet, she had the creeping feeling that it was. She kept walking, up to what seemed to be a pier that dropped off into the endless sky.   
With a scraping sound and an eerie splash of blackness, there appeared a figure, and Vera took a few steps back. It was the figure of a man garbed in a simple brown coat, pants, boots, almost as if she had seen him on the street somewhere. He looked normal, except for those black eyes. He hovered ever so slightly above the pier and regarded her coldly, but Vera felt a fondness in it.  
Yes, Vera. He said. Welcome to the Void. I have brought you here to give you something.  
Something? Vera thought. She could not find her voice in her throat. While her limbs were trembling, her heart felt at ease. She couldn't understand such a feeling, but she felt trapped with awe.  
 _Yes. I have watched you. Watched you travel through the Isles, looking for something. Whether that is fulfillment or power, none can say. A woman like you eludes reasoning. Now you find yourself here, trapped in the heart of Pandyssia, a land which once held so much promise, and you've fallen asleep at_ the one of _my shrines, erected by those people from the civilization before yours. You could have found me anywhere, Vera. You did not need to come looking here._  
What? Vera said. So, all this time, I was looking for this?  
 _For power, yes. For mystery. The man with the black eyes. You'll remember seeing me at different points of your life. In the courts. At_ Karnaca _. Serkonos. Dunwall. And here. I offer you a way out of here, and_ a way _beyond. Vera Moray, your works will live on even long after your name has been left in the_ dust, _if you accept my way._  
"Yes," Vera said in a hushed whisper, and the black eyes squinted.   
_I am interested to see what you will do._  
A seething pain howled through Vera's left arm. With mixed terror and fascination, she rolled back her sleeves and saw a mark that looked like a rune just like those she had seen on the bone talismans. It burned white hot in her skin, then faded to black.   
I am the Outsider, and this is my mark. There are forces in the world and beyond the world, forces that men scorn and call magic, and now these forces will serve your will. Use this newfound power, my gift to you.  
Vera listened quietly and nodded. Yes dearie, she thought to herself. The darkness around the Outsider pulsed and vibrated in wisps of nothing. She could heard the call of a whale somewhere in the Void.  
 _Now return to your world. And know that I will be watching with great interest._


	7. Ghosts

Vera's eyes opened, and she was back in her sleeping roll. She sat up groggily and looked to the door. Everything was back in its place, with the chest still holding the door. It was eerily quiet, save for the sounds of everyone quietly breathing as they slept, too soundly for where they were. She thought to herself that it had all been a dream, yet a strangely realistic one at that, and she clicked on the oil lamp nearest to her.   
Her own hand flew to her mouth to stifle her gasp when she caught sight of that same black mark on her arm. The sleeve had been rolled up, just as she had remembered leaving it in her dream. Well, she supposed it hadn't been a dream after all. The spot where the mark was seemed to thrum a sort of quiet energy. She glanced around at the others, still asleep though they had stirred slightly, and carefully rolled down the sleeve of her shirt and buttoned it around her wrist.   
The Mark meant many different things to many people. On tapestries, it bedecked the lairs of heretics, people who were found, tried, and executed by the Abbey. On skin, it meant that person was a heretic and a gifted witch. Very few people were ever known to have received it. Back in Dunwall, it was said that the assassin Daud held this heretic's power and he extended them to each of his students, the Whalers.   
Her fingertips brushed it lightly, and it felt significantly warmer than the rest of her arm, particularly in that place, which was lightly chilly, especially because she had been still so long. She felt more awake than she ever had been and more rested than was logical, and she wondered if she felt different. She also wondered when her newfound powers would come through to her. Focusing on the chest holding the door, she tried to move it by imagining it was moving. Nothing happened. Then she wondered if she could simply get to it by looking at it. She stood, slowly and gradually, and it was as if she was aware of every muscle and ligament in her tall thin frame. The life energy inside her thrummed, and she focused very carefully on the spot on the floor by the chest.  
Suddenly, she felt weightless, as if she were a breath of air. Her vision went dark, as if black wisps quickly covered her eyes, though they were open. Her entire body disappeared, then reappeared by the chest. Her stomach churned when she could feel it again, and her awareness of her body and being came back. She looked around her feet, eyes wide. Her bedroll was some ten feet away, and she smiled and felt she would laugh hysterically if not for the sleeping people.   
Lewis stirred suddenly, his eyes blinking open. In a parched sort of voice he said, "What are you doing?"  
"I only thought I'd check on the door," Vera replied. "I did peek outside a bit. Still safe…as it can be." She smiled.   
Lewis grunted but seemed appeased. "We should get going."  
"Yes, it must be a while since we came down here…you could spend years here and not know, because we can't tell day from night," she replied, her voice light. She was slightly intrigued by that fact, but Lewis' eyes widened.  
"Yes. Yes, we really should get going."  
Vera walked to her husband and crouched by his side. He looked sound asleep and peaceful, still with the smile on his face. Her hand wandered back to the necklace still on her, and it felt cold. It seemed a small thing compared to what else had happened to her. She thought to herself that her husband was too kind. It was slightly infuriating.  
She said loudly, "Preston, wake up."  
He stirred awake with bags under his eyes. "Yes, what is it? What's happened?"  
"Nothing. We just need to get moving," Vera replied.  
"It just…you-" Preston said. "Are you alright, dear?"  
"Fine," Vera said. "Let's just get packing, okay?"   
Mae stirred and turned over, and her hand reached for the pistol under her pillow. She found nothing, sat up, and pulled back the pillow, patting the space uselessly. "Who took it? Who took my gun?"  
Lewis replied, "No one. We were all asleep. Well, I was awake…most of the night."  
"You were supposed to be keeping watch," Mae said, standing. "Unless you're the one who took it back."  
"Mae, calm yourself. We have plenty more. You can just have another," Preston interjected, apparently less and less surprised by the appearance of things. "Though it does beg the question where it went, given that the door was blocked."  
As Lewis illuminated their oil lamps, they could gradually see more and more of a pool of spreading blood seeping out from under the door and chest. They all looked around at each other, almost as if to make sure all the remaining members of their party were there, and they quietly gathered their things and headed for the door. Mae still looked as if she were about to speak about her gun again, and Preston held a finger to his lips.  
"Please," he mouthed, exaggerating the words so she could see. "Quiet."  
Lewis held his gun with one hand and slowly pried the door from the wall with the other. His gun clicked and seemed to echo in the quiet as he pointed it into the darkness. He gestured to Preston for a lamp, and Preston handed it to him. Lewis stuck the lamp out, and then stumbled backwards, a scream on his face that didn't quite make it past his lips. Blake's body was lying just past the door, at at least half of it. It looked as if he had been dragged by his arms. A smeared trail of dark blood stretched behind him into the darkness, and his eyes were opened wide and white in the midst of the red streaming from them, mouth in a scream of desperation. His torso ended in a tangle of bloody flesh.   
Mae screamed and went into hysterics, while Preston tried to calm her, both her hands on his shoulders. "What the fuck? No…no…cast him into the Void! I wasn't even supposed to come here. She…she was. Mae was."  
"Excuse me?" Preston said, pulling Mae back into the darkness and away from what remained of Blake. "What do you mean, you weren't even supposed to come here?"  
"I'm not Mae the biologist. I'm just a commoner. I came on this expedition to get some easy way to being a biologist…I've wanted to be one all my life, but I never-" She stopped. "It's pointless. Please. We need to go."  
"No," Preston said, eyes wide and tired. "You will finish. You never…what? Do. Share."  
Vera watched Preston for a moment, then walked out and stepped around Blake. She held her lamp up to the wall, too calm, and it shone across dark letters painted in blood.  
Their bones will be our tools and their souls will never rest in Pandyssia.  
Vera looked around for signs of any person, then felt her vision change. She could see suddenly, past the cast of her lamp, and she could make out the outlines of people's bodies. Even through the wall, she could see the white outlines of Preston and of Mae. Mae was huddled on the floor with her arms around her body, while Preston was trying to coax the truth from her. Lewis walked out and stared up at the writing on the wall, gasping audibly.  
"My name is Macy," she replied. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just hoped…I could make it past…I guess. My lot. In life."  
Vera watched as Preston helped her up with a gentle hand, then she looked around and saw no other outlines, other than the half of Blake. She could see though the outlines of bare footprints, leading further down into the chasm and down the empty streets. She guessed that they could lead back up to the surface. She jumped a little when Preston's hand rested on her shoulder, the other arm going around her waist and holding her close.   
"Are you alright, Vera?" Preston said.   
"Fine, dearie. Fine," Vera replied. "I think this may be the way back up."  
"How do you know?" Lewis said, eyeing her. It's pitch black in this wretched place."  
"It makes sense, does it not?" Vera replied. "Whoever dwells here very likely has ways of getting in and out of these ruins, back up to the surface. We must find it, or would you rather stay here to end up like Blake?"  
"Vera…" Preston said, with more sickness than offense.  
"Of fucking course not," Lewis replied. "Let's just get going, heretic whisperer."  
Preston looked as if he were about to protest, but Vera placed a gentle hand on her husband's chest and shook her head, while they walked on with Lewis taking the lead and Mae following close behind them.  
"Should we do anything about Blake?"  
"No, we can't. He was sick…and we don't know what with. It's odd we're not each infected ourselves," Vera replied.  
"I think he'd have to bite," Mae said quietly.  
"Sorry?" Preston said.  
"He got sick from a rat bite, I think. He complained of one early in our trip, remember?" Mae said, writing down notes. "He was feverish and began to bleed from the eyes…then he grabbed at Preston for help. That trait may be psychological." She chewed on the end of her pen. It was apparent that she was trying to distract herself, to think of anything about the body behind them than how it ended up.   
"Why his legs?" Preston whispered. "Why take his legs?"  
"Bones," Vera said. "We've found charms made from bones."  
"Yes but…aren't they typically made of whale bone?"  
"Heretics will make charms out of anything they get their hands on, especially bones," Lewis said, turning his head to talk behind him as they walked. "I've seen it before. Cat bones. Dog bones. Human bones. Though they're not quite so favored as the whale bones, for whatever reason."  
"It is said that our world rests upon the back of a great leviathan at the bottom of the ocean," Vera said quietly. "Maybe that has something to do with it?" She wasn't sure whether it was true, and she waited for something to tell her whether or not it was, but no supernatural revelation of any sort came to her. Her sight flickered in and out of the altered or "dark" vision, as Vera thought she may call it.  
"That is simply folly. We live on a rock floating through an unforgiving abyss," Lewis said. "That's the simple truth."  
"When does one decide to become a member of the Abbey?" Vera said. "When you begin to lose faith in all else?"  
"All else but humanity," Lewis said. "The Abbey is our only guide against this dark world. All forces want to destroy us and the empire. Nothing is forgiving. We observe the seven tenets to keep our minds from falling to the chaos."  
"Why did you join the Abbey?" Vera said. She suspected that if she seemed genuinely interested in the workings of the Abbey, Lewis would be less suspicious of her for the rest of this journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/24/17: Can you tell I don't know how to name chapters?
> 
> More will coming soon, especially if this gets any sort of attention. Thanks for reading.


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